Come on Quakers! (From The Northern Echo)

Come on Quakers!

2:35pm Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Comment

YET more twists and turns on the Darlo rollercoaster yesterday took the football club to where most people wanted it to be: in the ownership of the fans.

This is great. This is fantastic. There was a brilliant quote from the rescue group spokesman, Shaun Campbell: “Gone are the white knights, gone are the black knights and the saviours. It is now down to the people of Darlington to run the club.”

Congratulations to the rescue group for their faith and tenacity, and congratulations to administrator Harvey Madden for his determination and indefatigability in guiding the club to this point.

We’d also like to thank Paul Wildes for his interest, which we believe to have been genuine. He had a plan to make the stadium work – to make money for the football club, for its landlords and, of course, for himself. Only time would have told if he could have been successful.

Now, despite all last night’s euphoria, the Quakers are in the last chance saloon.

They are only at this point because no private investor finds them attractive enough.

There clearly hasn’t been time for the rescue group to dot all the is and cross all the ts on its community plan. There are still some very profound questions to be answered, such as whether outgoing chairman Raj Singh will sign away his huge debt, such as how the oversize stadium can be run without crippling another batch of good intentions, or such as how a club with no assets can build a more suitable venue elsewhere.

Actually, that last sentence is not strictly true. The club might not own its stadium or land or have any money in the bank.

But it does have one big asset: its supporters and its townspeople.

The passion, and the generosity, shown these last few weeks has been amazing. It gives great hope that the other profound question – how can hundreds of thousands of pounds be raised in a short space of time – can be answered.

We hope that when the questions are answered, the people of the town and the district around will rally behind this brave move and take the Quakers into a new era with a new model.

The Northern Echo will be backing them all the way.